At the beginning of part one of your IELTS Speaking test, you’ll often be asked two or three questions about your hometown. One of those questions might be, “Do you like your hometown?”
In this post, you’ll learn how to give a great answer to this question. And you can also read 20 different example answers (go straight to the answers here).
A Common Mistake To Avoid
Remember that ‘hometown’ means the city, town, or village where you were born. It doesn’t mean the city you live in now.
So, if you’ve left your hometown to live somewhere else, don’t mix the two cities up.
If You Like Your Hometown
There are many different things you might like about your hometown.
Your answer should be short, so just choose one or two things to mention. You could talk about:
- Your friends and family living there
- All the good memories you have there
- A nice atmosphere for living
- High quality of life
- Great weather
- Clean air
- Lack of pollution
- Affordable house prices
- Safety (low crime levels)
- Good work opportunities
- Great local food
- Great locals (people who live there)
- Lots of fun recreational things to do
- Beautiful architecture
- Great coffee shops
- Great shopping areas
- Convenient transportation
- Closeness to nature (parks, mountains, beaches…)
- How it’s quiet and peaceful (slow pace of life)
- How it’s energetic and full of life (fast pace of life)
- Things your hometown is famous for
- Anything else that comes to mind
If You Don’t Like Your Hometown
Some people dislike their hometown and that’s fine. Just try to explain why. You might talk about:
- Why you don’t like it
- Why you left your hometown (if you live somewhere else now)
- Why you want to leave
- Your plans to leave in future
Here are some possible reasons for disliking your hometown. It might be too…
- Expensive
- Boring
- Small
- Big and busy
- Run down
- Unsafe (high crime levels)
- Polluted
- Too much traffic
- Lacking in job opportunities
- Far away from other places
- Slow (slow pace of life)
- Fast-moving (fast pace of life)
- Industrial
- The opposite of any of the above reasons to like your hometown
- Anything else that you think of
Don’t Speak for Too Long
One mistake many students make in part one is talking too much.
It’s quite easy to speak about your hometown, so you might feel like talking and talking and talking and talking and…
Stop. Don’t do that.
Part one is just to warm you up. It’s supposed to be like a natural conversation with simple, short sentences.
So keep your answers short and simple: 10 to 20 seconds is fine.
You can use the three-step YES Method to remind you when to stop. To use this method, just say:
- Your answer (‘yes, I do’ or ‘no, I don’t’)
- Explain your answer (give one or two quick reasons why)
- Stop talking (wait patiently for the next question)
Look at the length of these 20 example answers. Try to say about the same amount when you answer.
‘Yes, I Do’ Answers
1. Yes, I do. I like my hometown because it’s a large metropolitan city with plenty of fun things to do. So I’m never bored living there.
2. Yes, I do. I’m from Brussels in Belgium, and I love it there because the architecture is gorgeous. When I was younger, I loved walking past all those stunning old buildings every day.
3. Yes, I’ve lived in my hometown for all of my life, and all my friends and family are here. I’d never want to live anywhere else.
4. Yes, I certainly do like my hometown. It’s a pretty, scenic little village close to Osaka. It’s so unbelievably quiet and peaceful and I feel so relaxed every time I go back to see my parents.
5. Yes, I like my hometown a great deal. It’s very convenient, with an excellent transportation system, so it’s always easy to get around town.
6. Yes, I do. I think what I like most about my hometown is how great the shopping is there. I really love the central shopping streets, with all their boutique clothing stores and coffee shops. I used to spend a lot of time there with my friends.
7. Yes, I do. I’m originally from Buenos Aires in Argentina, and I love the wonderful music culture and amazing cuisine that we have.
8. Yes, I like the hot weather in my hometown. I’m from a small town in the south of Spain. Now I live in Norway, and sometimes I miss all the sunshine of my hometown.
9. Yes, my hometown is great because you have a big, bustling, urban city with lots to do, and you also have mountains and beaches, for escaping into nature. I’m from Shenzhen in China.
10. Yes, my hometown is really well-known for its art and culture. I’m from Paris, which I think is the best and most beautiful city in the world.
‘No, I Don’t’ Answers
11. No, to be honest, I don’t like my hometown much at all. I’m from a very industrial city with highly polluted air. I was glad to leave it.
12. No, I don’t because I found it difficult to find work in my hometown. It’s not a good place for jobs and business, unfortunately.
13. No, I dislike how remote my hometown is. It’s in the east of Russia, far away from any other cities. That’s one reason I left a few years ago.
14. No, to be frank, I found it unpleasant to live in my hometown because it’s so crowded and the traffic was awful. I used to spend two hours stuck in traffic jams every day on my commute.
15. No, I’m afraid I don’t. My hometown is a very sleepy little village, where nothing interesting ever happens. I think it’s far too boring for me.
‘Somewhat’ Answers
16. Well, I suppose I do like my hometown overall. All my friends are there. But it has become more and more expensive over the last decade, which has reduced my quality of life quite a lot.
17. Yes and no. I like the relaxed cafe culture of my hometown. People are so chilled out. On the other hand, it can be quite boring.
18. Well, I love how much art and music you can enjoy around the city. But it’s a little too big for me. I don’t like traveling so far every time I have to get across town to see my friends.
19. I’m not sure if I like my hometown or not. It’s just another big city to me. I think it’s probably the same as anywhere else to live.
20. Well, I used to hate my hometown when I lived there. But since I left home I’ve realized that I miss it! You know, it’s funny how you only appreciate some things when they’re gone.
Your Turn!
Now, let’s see how you do. Set up a voice recorder and ask out loud, “Do you like your hometown?”
Answer loudly and clearly and quickly. Try to focus on fluency (not hesitating).
Keep your answer simple. Don’t worry about advanced vocabulary for now.
And remember to keep it quite short (10 or 20 seconds). You can use the three-step YES Method to help with this.
When you’ve finished, listen to your answer, write down what you said, and see if you can find a mistake or two.
Then… do it again!
Keep repeating this process and you’ll start to improve.
This is a terrific way to prepare for part one of your IELTS Speaking test.
